Vespertine

Chapter Five

There is something about days when the wind blows against your cheeks, brushing the cool skin like gentle caresses and a few drops of mist. 

The world seems a little slower because not a lot of people like to go out on days like this, and yet the world seems more vivid too – drenched in the colours of grey and accent blue.

The particular morning was something like this.

The soles of my shoes tapped against the wet corridor of the school building, splashing miniature puddles pooling in random areas and continuing onwards... letting the flurrying water slowly settle back into calm clearness. A clearness that reflected the grey clouds in the sky.

An arm remained hooked to the white tote hung from my shoulder, while the other swung with my hurried movements, a dull ache ripping under the surface of my skin whenever it brushed against the material of my pants. My left wrist... that was nothing less of a cleverly hidden blue-black testament of the long slender fingers that were wrapped around them for the past two hours I spent in the lecture room.

My melancholy was that I was too stubborn to admit defeat. I was too stubborn to let him believe I could see him, and so just as I had done last night when I simply turned away from the mirror — at that very moment, as I walked out of the auditorium, I simply pretended as if the tall pale man walking beside me like a shadow... was none other than the wind.

"Ni— Gardenia!"

Surprised at the urgent cry echoing my name so shrilly, my wide eyes snapped up to the person the voice belonged to and stilled. Ah...

"Nadine," I tried to smile at my classmate calmly. Pushing down the sight of pure amusement painted across the pale face of the man standing behind her.

"You... did you go somewhere... dirty? So-somewhere old?"

I blinked, staring at the wide-eyed Nadine who turned a little to the side, clearly refusing to look at the individual behind me.

"No," I shook my head dumbly, "Why?"

Nadine cringed visibly...

"Well, you... I ... I think something is attached to you... but I..I can't feel it anymore... I think it was something dirty..."

The daunting air, again, washed itself over me. As if like calculated magic... precisely on the same minute as Nadine's last word fell.

I heard a scoff behind my head, "Dirty? How did you land yourself a morbidly blind wife, Kai?"

My eyes widened as I stared at the normally domineering Kai calmly lower his judgmental eyes on me, but maintained his silence.

"Well, at least she can sense and communicate with you," The being behind me reflected, "My wife can't even see what a handsome husband has fallen on her lap."

Once again Kai's judgmental eyes fixed themselves on me. Once again he remained silent, but this time he raised an eyebrow at me humorously. As if mocking me for keeping this secret from my soulmate.

Faced with a situation such as this, there seemed to be only two options. One was telling Kai to take that smug face and return to hell, and the second was being the ever-so-composed human and avoiding unworldly discourse.

I chose the latter and simply decided to maintain all conversations limited to Nadine.

"I have been apartment hunting recently, I've been to a lot of places you see." I shrugged helplessly.

"Oh, well..." Nadine's eyes darted around me in panicked contemplation, as if she was deciding whether to say the next few words.

"Well..." She hesitated again, her wide gaze resting on my calm ones, "Well... the tune sounds nice, you mustn't be too upset, right?"